


giving up the gun

by orestes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Fake/Pretend Relationship, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-12 23:16:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18456629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orestes/pseuds/orestes
Summary: “Why didn’t you get me any flowers? Where are my get well soon cards?” He turns to face Derek, eyes accusing. “The nurses are gonna think you don’t love me.”OR: the five times Stiles and Derek pretended to be in a relationship during a mission, + the one time they didn't have to pretend.





	giving up the gun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [boyfriends](https://archiveofourown.org/users/boyfriends/gifts).



> phew! this has been sitting in my WIP folder for an eon and i figured it was about time i started to post it. i will try to update every week or so, but i'm starting a new job next week (woo!) and i also have another fic on the go, so sorry in advance if there are any delays!
> 
> as always, feedback would be much appreciated \o/

It starts with sirens blaring outside the apartment, loud enough to make the windows rattle, and the flashing blue light on top of the ambulance streaming in through the open door.

Derek immediately goes stiff where he’s hunched over Stiles’s cold, unconscious body. As the medics pour in, his hand involuntarily clenches around Stiles’s limp wrist.

He can feel the faint pulse of a heartbeat against his palm, just about.

“Derek,” comes Braeden’s unimpressed voice through his earpiece. “If this is gonna work, you’re gonna need to play up to the hysterical boyfriend role. Or at least look like you’re worried. No -- _no_ Derek.” An unimpressed sigh. “I don’t mean look worried like I just asked you to pick up a mouldy squid from the fish counter. Worried like you _care_ about him.”

There’s an expectant beat of silence through the comm.

Clenching his jaw, Derek ignores her.

“Sir,” one of the medics calls over to him. “You’re going to have to step away from the body for us to get through to him. Please -- just, step away from the body.”

Stiles looks like a broken doll the way he’s sprawled out on the floor, clothes rumbled around slack limbs, mouth open just enough to show a neat line of teeth, face as pale as porcelain.

It feels wrong to let anyone else see Stiles like this, looking small and vulnerable without the usual aura of confidence and frenetic energy that surrounds him, but Derek is too used to taking orders to do anything but listen when he’s told to move.

His feet move him out of the way mechanically, putting him halfway across the room before he can blink. Stiles’s arm drops out of his grasp, sinks through the air, deadweight, and hits the carpet with a dull thud.

As soon as he’s cleared the way for them, the medics rush in, load Stiles into a stretcher and carry him out of the apartment.

For a long moment Derek stands rooted to the spot, watching them hurry Stiles into the back of the ambulance, talking too fast for him to decipher what they’re saying as they gesture to each other over the top of Stiles’s head. His chest feels tighter than usual.

“Derek,” Braeden prompts. “You need to follow them.”

Right.

Because that’s the whole point of this.

Derek shakes his head, trying to clear it, and propels himself towards the door. “I’m not leaving him,” he tells the medic standing closest to the front door. “I’m his--” his words stumble on the tip of his tongue. “His boyfriend.” His ears are ringing with the echoes of the sirens. His mouth feels like it’s been stuffed full of cotton wool. “I should stay with him. Let me -- I want to come too.”

“No wonder we never assign you undercover work,” says Braeden.

Thankfully, though, the paramedics find his performance believable; they don’t argue with him, just usher him into the back of the ambulance, and slam the doors shut behind him.

The siren wails on again when the ambulance pulls away. Braeden hisses a complaint about the noise before she switches their comm line off. Derek slumps down in the fold-away seat the medic who is taking Stiles’s pulse gestures to, laces his fingers with Stiles’s limp ones, and allows himself to relax, just for a minute.

He doesn’t know why his heart is beating so fast. He’s meant to be a professional, after all, and so far everything is running far more smoothly than he expected it would.

-

Stiles wakes up seven hours later connected up to an IV.

The first thing he says is, “Fuck.”

His voice cracks mid-word and Derek, sitting stiffly in a chair at his bedside, immediately reaches for the jug of water that one of the nurses left them. He has to release his hold on Stiles’s hand to pour some into the glass on the bedside table. Stiles takes it in his trembling hand when he’s offered it and somehow manages to spill half of the water down his front whilst raising the rim to his lips.

He grimaces around a swallow before he attempts to speak again.

“Derek,” he says. “Promise me you’re never going to let Lydia put drugs in my system again.”

“Lydia is an unstoppable force. I couldn’t stop her even if I wanted to.” Derek takes the glass from Stiles’s hand and sets it down on the bedside table before he can spill more of it on his pale hospital gown. “Besides, this entire set-up was _your_ bright idea.”

Stiles’s reactions are still slow and stilted, so it takes him a moment to arrange his face into something resembling a glare.

Derek snorts, barely resisting the urge to reach out and touch him again. To take his hand and squeeze it, or smooth the hair back from his forehead. The hospital setting is bringing out the protective instincts Derek never knew he had.

To divert his own attentions, he changes the topic.

“How are you feeling?”

“Bad,” Stiles replies. “Really bad. Like, ready for death levels of bad. And unloved.” He redirects his glare up at the ceiling. “Why didn’t you get me any flowers? Where are my get well soon cards?” He turns to face Derek, eyes accusing. “The nurses are gonna think you don’t love me.”

“I really don’t think the nurses will notice your lack flowers,” Derek says. “And you haven’t been here long enough to warrant cards.”

Stiles makes a face. “How long was I out? And did you get the stuff on the—”

There’s a knock on the door before he can finish his sentence, and the nurse Derek has been tormenting for the last three hours strides into the room.

“Mr. Hale,” she greets, tone clipped.

Her manner towards him gradually shifted from polite concern to irritated indifference. She tried to reason with his refusal to leave the hospital when visiting hours were over, huffed when he wouldn’t allow her to administer any medication to Stiles without first giving Derek a detailed explanation of its potential side effects, and flat out glared when he started to insist that he wanted Stiles to be treated by his family doctor instead of the one the hospital assigned him.

Derek feels bad: he may have overdone it once he got into his role as the overprotective boyfriend.  He doesn’t even have a family doctor.

“The doctor you’ve been asking after doesn’t seem to be part of this institution,” the nurse says, rubbing her eyes. She looks tired and frustrated. “And, as I tried to explain to you an hour ago, even if there were a Dr. Deaton here, I wouldn’t just reassign him to your—” She gestures at Stiles, does a double take, and startles when she sees that he’s conscious, trailing off mid-sentence. “Oh!”

“Surprise,” Stiles says, wiggling his fingers in greeting.

The nurse turns to Derek, eyes narrowing. “You didn’t tell us your friend woke up.”

“Boyfriend,” Stiles corrects her, voice slightly scratchy from disuse. Derek valiantly ignores the way the word makes his heart skip a beat. “He’s my boyfriend.”

“And I was just about to call you,” Derek says. “He woke up a few minutes ago.”

She elects to ignore Derek, but shoots Stiles a tight smile.

“Sorry,” she says. “I didn’t realise that you two are -- involved. My mistake.”

Her tone is slightly too snippy to sound apologetic, and Derek knows the ‘friend’ slip couldn’t have been accidental, since he made a point to refer to Stiles as his boyfriend at least thirty times in her presence.

This must be her subtle attempt to rib at Derek without giving him actual ammunition to write down on a complaint form, and -- well. He has to hand it to her. If he and Stiles really were dating, that _would_ annoy him.

Stiles doesn’t seem to care, though.

He just shrugs it off and returns her smile, warm and genuine.

“I hope Derek didn’t give you too much trouble while I was asleep.” He shifts his arm so the tips of his fingers are bumping against Derek’s shoulder. Derek suspects he was going for a back-slap, but his range of motion is currently too limited for it to be anything other than a feeble little touch. “You’re a real worrier, aren’t you babe? Always worrying about me.”

The nurse’s expression softens slightly. Stiles often has that effect on people; on the rare occasion he chooses to use it, his charm offensive is a force to be reckoned with.

“He was fine,” she tells him, waving a dismissive hand. “No worse than any other worried family member. I know it can be stressful, having someone you love suddenly rushed to hospital.”

Derek tries not to gape as she leans over the bed to check Stiles’s IV line. “Are you in pain? Do you need me to increase your morphine dosage?” She pauses, and Stiles shakes his head. “Okay then, you just sit tight and try to relax. I’m going to find the doctor for you.”

She shoots Derek significant look over her shoulder before she bustles out of the room -- one that says she hasn’t forgotten his constant complaints and general recalcitrance, but she’s going to be the bigger person here and get on with her job.

Stiles starts laughing as soon as she’s out of earshot.

“She looked so mad at you,” he says, sounding thrilled by the prospect. “You know, I remember her from last year when Scott fell out of that tree broke his arm. She was so lovely. Held his hand when they put the cast on and called him _sweetie_. He still uses her as his main example of humanity being inherently good when he goes on drunken philosophical rants.” Stiles shakes his head, a small smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. “And yet you managed to break her good temperament in the space of one night shift.”

Derek shrugs. “Call it a talent.”

Stiles bumps his fingers against Derek’s shoulder again.

“You know, we should probably be holding hands or something,” he says, apropos of nothing. “If you had a real boyfriend and he was really hospitalized, I’d like to think you’d hold his hand.”

“I held your hand for seven hours,” Derek says.

“But I was unconscious, so it doesn’t count.”

Derek rolls his eyes but he laces their fingers together again nonetheless. Stiles looks down at their hands, then at the door, then back at their hands again. His eyes narrow into a calculating squint as he angles his chin up slightly, gesturing for Derek to move closer to him.

“Hey,” he mutters, low and conspiratorial. “Has Isaac found the files we need?”

“Last I heard he’s still working on it,” Derek tells him with a shrug. “Kira cracked the code to get him into the archive room about an hour ago, and then he disconnected his comm from the system. Said he needed to concentrate. None of us have heard from him since.”

Stiles rolls his eyes.

“Of course he did.”

It’s no secret that Stiles dislikes the way Isaac works, from his tendency to turn off his comm during missions to his slow approach to… well, pretty much everything. But before he can start detailing all the reasons why they need to ‘find someone better, Derek, please god, that semi-sentient lamp post needs to be stuck on desk duty for the rest of his life,’ the door swings open.

Saved by the man in the orange scrubs, Derek thinks, as one of the doctors from earlier scuttles into the room. Derek would guess that he’s a new resident at the hospital -- he’s young and seems kind of skittish, and he’s clutching the clipboard loaded with paperwork and dark printouts of Stiles’s x-ray scans under his arm like they’re a lifeline or something.

They both pretend to listen attentively as he gives them the run-down on Stiles’s condition, which has -- miraculously, according to the doctor -- stabilized already.

Lydia told them it would.

“So, doc,” Stiles says, attempting to lean forward despite his body’s obvious protests. Derek rolls his eyes and pushes him down again. Stiles huffs, but doesn’t really fight him on it. He turns back to the doctor once he’s settled in against his pillows. “Have you figured out what’s wrong with me yet?”

The doctor shakes his head. “Your bloodstream is clear and your vitals are fine,” he says. “There’s no sign of a tumor anywhere and your heart rate has been constant for hours. Right now, we have no idea what caused the collapse. Have you been consuming excessive amounts of alcohol or using any other mood-enhancing substances?”

“Nope.” Stiles shakes his head, eyes wide and worried. “None at all.” Derek has to press his lips together to stop himself from laughing at Stiles’s terrible attempt at acting as he watches Stiles clasp his hands together against his chest and simper, “Do you think I’m gonna be okay, doc?”

It’s like watching a scene from the low-budget dramas they show on daytime TV.

Good thing the doctor is too nervous to notice.

“I can’t guarantee anything at this stage, because our tests may have missed something,” he says apologetically. “But as far as I can see there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be just fine.” Derek ducks his head to hide his smirk at Stiles’s melodramatic sigh of relief. “We’ll keep you here tonight as a precaution but -- providing there are no major changes to your condition overnight -- please feel free to check yourself out tomorrow morning.”

“Awesome,” Stiles says, and this time his smile is genuine. “Thank you.”

-

Derek wakes up with a sore neck that night from sleeping in the chair next to Stiles’s bed, bent over double so he can rest his forehead on the mattress. Sunlight is streaming into the room through the narrow window in the corner, and Stiles’s fingers are tangled in his hair. He opens his eyes blearily, tries to sit up, and winces in pain when his muscles angrily protest the movement.

He rubs the back of his neck and lifts his head slowly.

Stiles isn’t awake yet.

Derek carefully levers himself out of the chair, stretches his aching legs, and shuffles his way down the corridor. He stops at the small shop on the first floor, buys Stiles the tackiest bouquet of flowers he can find and a huge ‘get well soon’ balloon, then goes to the cafe and orders them both coffee.

Stiles grumbles something that sounds a hell of a lot like “stop moving, stupid,” in his sleep when Derek pushes his way back into the room. Derek bites back a smile as he sets their coffees down on the bedside table.

He ties the balloon to the end of the bed so Stiles will see it as soon as he wakes up and briefly debates putting the flowers in the jug, before he remembers that Stiles might be thirsty when he wakes up. Derek leaves the bouquet in the sink instead.

-

Derek only meant to rest his eyes for a few minutes. Just until Braeden asked him to do something, or Isaac reactivated his comm, or Stiles woke up, or one of the nurses came back in, or--

Or he was needed for _something_ more pressing than holding Stiles’s hand.

Stiles’s hand, which feels warm and a little sweaty under his.

He sits up slowly, wincing at the crick that formed in his neck while he slept.

“Hey,” Stiles murmurs softly. His eyes are half-lidded, like he’s barely awake. His voice sounds slightly less cracked than it did last night. He rubs a big hand down his face and offers Derek a lopsided half smile. “You got me a balloon. And flowers.”

Derek shrugs.

“You wanted me to get you something.”

“That doesn’t mean you had to do it,” Stiles says.

He brushes his fingers through the short hair at the back of Derek’s neck, a tentative, barely-there touch that feels like it’s testing the waters. Derek lets himself lean into Stiles ever so slightly.

Someone makes a noise like they’re trying to stifle a laugh from the other side of the room, which is followed closely by a tell tale shutter click-and-flash of an iPhone camera. The sudden flash of bright light makes Stiles groan, long and drawn out.

“I absolutely hate you,” he says. His eyes don’t leave Derek’s, so Derek doesn’t look away either. “Whoever you are, I hate you.”

“For capturing this moment of domestic bliss?” says Scott.

Derek instantly wishes that voice belonged to anyone else other than him. Not because he doesn’t like Scott -- honestly, it’s impossible to dislike Scott -- but because Stiles’s attention is immediately diverted away from Derek whenever Scott walks into a room.

“Yeah, exactly that,” Stiles says. His hand leaves the back of Derek’s neck so he can take the phone out of Scott’s hand, squinting down at the picture on the screen. “Couldn’t you see that we were having a really romantic moment just then?”

“Yep,” Scott says. “That’s why I took a picture. Memories to show your future grandkids.”

Stiles throws his head back and laughs.

Derek’s stomach makes an uncomfortable turn.

“Isaac found and photocopied all the files we need. Are you guys ready to go?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

Derek stands up, straightens his leather jacket, and carefully unhooks Stiles from the IV line. He waits in the doorway while Stiles unties the balloon from the end of his bed and gets his flowers out of the sink, standing shoulder to shoulder with Scott, and pretends not to notice the way Scott’s eyes are boring into the side of his head.

Then his comm line crackles back to life, and when Scott and Stiles share a synchronized wince in time to the sudden static in his ears, Derek figures they must all be connected.

“Good job, boys,” Braeden tells them. “That's a wrap. Let’s move.”


End file.
